Haemophagia
by The Real Syko
Summary: The girls go downtown one day, but there is a biological accident and they bring a virus back to the house. Now someone feasts on the blood of others by night  but who?
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Cream skipped playfully into the living room. Sonic sat on the sofa lazily with a soda. He was watching TV. Silver jumped down on to it next to him.

"You can watch 'Two And A Half Men' later, I want to catch the news," He grabbed the remote, and Sonic was too lazy to stop him. The newsreader had a grave look on her face.

"Top story this morning, an accident at the Robotnik laboratories downtown in the small hours of the morning has left traces of an experimental virus all around the city centre. All citizens are urged not to go downtown for any reason until further notice. As this is an experimental virus, its effects are not known for sure, but the main symptoms are erratic behaviour, pale complexion and the need to feed on… eh… ahem, sorry. The need to feed on blood."

"God! What kind of virus was the screwball working on?"

"That's not the only thing." Silver added worriedly.

"What?"

"The girls went downtown shopping, they wouldn't have heard."

"Oh, shit…ake mushrooms." As if on cue, the door opened, and Amy, Rouge and Blaze wandered into the house.

"Hi guys," Amy was definitely the most cheerful.

"Ahem… are you going to tell them?" Silver nudged Sonic.

"No, you tell them."

"Heh hem, tell us what?" Rouge asked irritably.

"Fine… eh, we just heard on the news, that…" As Silver explained, the general expressions went from casually interested to shocked and appalled.

"What the… so, any one us of could be infected?"

"Depends on how contagious it is, we could all be infected, or none of us could,"

"Well, Shadow already has erratic behaviour, so he's got it…" Sonic quipped.

"I heard that!" He called from the kitchen.

"So what do we do?" Silver had taken charge.

"I can start work on an antigen now," Tails suggested.

"Good idea, don't waste any time with that, get started now," Tails left the table and headed to the garage/lab.

"Well, we can be fairly sure that me, Sonic, Shadow, Tails and Cream aren't infected. Me and Sonic were the first to hear. Cream was in the room at the time. Shadow never gets sick, so he should be fine. Tails was eating breakfast, I could hear him in the kitchen."

"What's to say that you guys haven't caught it off us?" Blaze replied.

"We don't know, we just have to wait and see."

They went about their morning business with heavy minds for the rest of the morning. Tails worked away in the lab, Shadow sat in his room listening to music, Sonic watched TV while Amy tried to flirt, Cream played outside with Cheese, the usual business. Lunch came and went almost silently, Tails only emerged from the lab to get a sandwich and a chocolate bar before heading back to work. Knuckles arrived midway through the afternoon, only just getting back from college now.

That night was a dark one, especially so because of a power cut. Candles were lit all around the house. Blaze was taking a late night trip to the bathroom. When she reached for the door handle on her way out, it twisted before she touched it.

"Okay…" She said, loudly and nervously. She opened the door. She wandered out onto the landing. The candle was blown out because the window was open. Now the only light was the dim light of the stars shining in the window. She looked around nervously.

"Who's there? Anyone?" She threw the candle in a random direction, spilling the melted wax on the floor. She felt around for the banister. She found it. She felt along it, trying to find herself in the near-blackness of the landing. She put her hand on another hand.

"Oh, crap… um… I hope that's you, Silver…" she looked around. She saw the twinkle of an eye. "Oh… my god…" Before she could scream, something was shoved into her mouth, something like a fist, which she could barely breathe around, let alone scream for help. She felt two sharp, piercing pains on her neck, and she tried to struggle. It was to no avail. Still, she flailed in a vain attempt to get free, although she could feel herself becoming fainter by the second. Suddenly, the fist was removed from her mouth, although by now, she couldn't say anything, or even breathe. Her shoulder felt like it had been ripped open, and her knees went weak. She collapsed without a word, and quickly fell unconscious.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Sonic rubbed his eyes as he swung out of bed. Sunday. One more day of the weekend to go. He swung out of bed lazily. He opened the door, still rubbing his eyes. He froze as he saw what was on the landing.

"Um… somebody please tell me I'm dreaming…"

"What's the problem?" Shadow emerged from his room. "Holy mother of crap, what the puck is that?"

"Eh… I think it used to be Blaze…" Neither of them could take their eyes off the body of Blaze, sprawled out on the side of the landing. The base of her neck on her left shoulder was completely bitten out, and the blood had dried around the wound. There was evidence of blood dripping down her arm and torso, and there was a large pool of blood around her, dried into the carpet.

"What's everybody so upset about Oh my sweet Jesus…" Sliver had surfaced aswell. "Oh… oh god…" He ran downstairs and started looking for what to do. First things first, he dialled 911.

"911 emergency line,"

"Yes, the virus leak in Robotnik labs yesterday? Someone in our house is infected and another is dead,"

"Oh god, another haemophagia incident… what's your address?"

"Eh… 248 Park Avenue,"

"Do you know how the haemophage is?"

"No,"

"Right. We'll have some units over immediately," The cop on the other end hung up.

Within two minutes, two black-and-whites had parked on the lawn. The police began to talk through their megaphones.

"Please do not come out of your house! If you try to leave your house we will shoot!" Sonic gulped. "We do not want to hurt you. Remain in your house to await further instruction,"

"Why can't we come out?" Tails called from the window.

"If you… wait, turn this off… if you come out, you'll spread the virus, and because you can't confirm who haemophage is, we can't isolate them and eliminate them," Tails gulped aswell.

"Eliminate?"

Within a couple of hours, the police had boarded up all the doors and locked the windows, and isolated their drainage. They airlifted in a week's worth of food supplies in through the chimney.

"Well, nothing to do now but wait until the whole thing blows over,"

"Look on the bright side," Everyone glared at Sonic. "We won't have to get up early tomorrow,"

"Okay, we know the virus is contagious, but it doesn't take well to every host, so it could be any one of us, or more than one of us, but we don't know who,"

"Wouldn't one of us remember if we killed Blaze last night?"

"Not necessarily, they might have no recollection of going into vampire mode. And whoever it was covered their tracks very well, the only trail of blood leads to the bathroom sink, so there's no fingerprints or anything. I'm near a breakthrough on the antigen, but it should only be able to stop the virus from spreading, it won't cure the condition."

"Great." Shadow replied sarcastically.

That evening, Silver was wandering around downstairs, frustrated and bored. There wasn't a hell of a lot to do, and most of the others had gone to bed. He walked into the sitting room. Amy was watching TV.

"Isn't it a little late for you?"

"I'm not tired, and I don't have to be up and out of here early tomorrow," Silver went the other way, not seeing a point in arguing. He wandered out into the hall, which was dark. He pawed around for the light switch.

"Looking for something?" A voice said. Silver wheeled round.

"What? Who said that?" He grabbed hold of the handrail on the stairs. Something grabbed him and threw him to the other side of the hallway, the side in the shade.

"Me," The voice said. Silver recognised it immediately.

"What? It can't be you… wait HEL… mph!" Something was shoved in his mouth to shut him up. He tried to scream as two sharp fangs sank their way into his neck. He continued trying to scream, even though he knew it was futile. Then the breath started to go from him, and the he felt light-headed. Everything started to go dark and silent…


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Cream skipped happily out of bed, thinking of the prospects of a new day in this indefinite weekend. She went to the bathroom first, and closed the door behind her. She didn't take any notice of the big red patch on the floor that had been there since yesterday. She also thought it odd that Blaze had gone away… nobody was cold enough to tell her what had really happened. Not even Shadow – those cute little 9-year-old eyes just melted his heart.

She made her way down the stairs bouncily. She didn't see what was wrong until she nearly tripped on it. She stared for a minute, more curious than freaked out.

"Silver?" She said. There was no response. "Silver? Why didn't you go to bed last night?" Still no answer. "It's awfully rude not answering." Still, Silver failed to respond. "Well, you're silly for sleeping in the hall." She skipped away into the sitting room, blissfully unaware of what had happened to Silver.

Rouge was the next to rise. She climbed down from her attic bedroom with her head spinning. _Ugh… not only is their some vampire virus going round the house, the heater broke and I didn't sleep a wink._ She slumped down the stairs and cast an idle glance to the other side of the hall. _Oh God. _She stopped. There sat Silver, in a large pool of his own blood, with his tongue hanging out and his eyes rolled, very obviously dead. She could also see paw prints leading from the pool of blood to the sitting room. She stepped over it careful not to step on any of the evidence herself. She looked at where they led. There, on the couch, sat Cream, in her pyjamas, idly content watching the morning kids shows. Rouge's head went into turntable mode – spinning. _How could it be possible that Cream…this, child… no, it's not possible. But the tracks…_

"Sweetie, when did you get up?" She asked casually.

"Just now. There was a lot of red paint on the floor. It was silly of Silver to sleep in it… heh! Silly Silver…" She turned back to the TV. _Awww…_ Rouge thought. _She's so innocent… and long may it last…_ she turned back to see if anyone else had gotten up.

"That was just plain messy…" Knuckles thumped the table.

"Well, it's definitely not Blaze," Amy counted with her fingers.

"Which means it's either you or the bat-girl," Shadow stared at Amy with conviction. Rouge glared at him.

"Tails, any news on the antigen?" Sonic asked.

"I have a beta version ready now,"

"A beta version?" Shadow said, not impressed.

"Well, the whole thing would take ages to come with, so I started with a beta version that would halt the spread. Once the outbreak is contained…"

"We're pretty damn contained as it stands," Knuckles quipped.

"… I can work on a full anti-virus to actually cure victims."

"So what have you got?" Sonic asked casually. Six jaws hit the floor as Tails produced a stunning array of vials, syringes, pills and general pharmaceuticals.

"What do you want?" He quipped.

"Cream, you look pretty spooked…" Amy nestled up to her as she saw her quivering on the couch that evening.

"Are… those people… actually… dying?" She asked cautiously.

"Who?"

"Blaze? And Silver? I didn't see them since we found them in the big pool of… red stuff…" She was still not clued in about the nature of this 'red paint'. Amy paused.

"I'm not gonna lie to you, you're probably old enough to handle this… you're a big girl now, aren't you?" She said tenderly. Cream nodded. "Well… yes, they did die. And we don't know why or who killed them." Cream stared down at her feet. She looked nervous. She was scared, because she had suddenly grasped the nature of the situation. She sniffed a bit.

"Will… will anyone else die?" She asked nervously.

"I don't know, honey…" Amy wrapped her arms around Cream to hug her.

"Will I die,"

"I hope not," Amy said reassuringly. She thought a bit. "I tell you what, why don't you sleep in my room tonight?"

"With you?"

"Yeah,"

"Will you keep all the monsters and vampires away?"

"Yes, of course," Amy laughed. Cream hugged her again and pranced away. "Well, the monsters anyway…" Amy muttered under her breath.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

She stretched her arm out above her and yawned. She shielded her eyes from the incoming sunlight – she didn't remember leaving the curtains open. She swung her legs out of the bed and shook herself off. A few pink hairs fell to the ground, as hairs do. She stood up. She pulled the curtains shut and turned back to face the rest of the room. She walked round to the other side of the bed to check on Cream. There she was, in her sleeping bag on the blow-up bed on the floor. She was quiet… very quiet. Amy was suspicious. She lay down on her own bed, next to Cream's. She whispered down to her,

"Cream? You okay?"

She paused. There was no response. She nudged her. Still no response. She tugged at the sleeping bag in an effort to wake her. She zipped it down and pulled it open. She froze.

She barely had the breath to scream.

The bottom of the sleeping back was soaked with blood, mostly still wet. The side of Cream that she was lying on, the side that was hidden… she turned her over to reveal the gaping wound to her neck. Amy winced and turned away. A tear came to her eye. It was a full hour before she gathered the strength to get up and tell everyone.

Sonic was staring over his cereal wearily. He played with the fruit loops with his spoon. Amy staggered through the doorway, looking a mess.

"Amy, you look a bit upset,"

"She's dead," She coughed.

"Who?"

"WHAT?" Shadow spat out his orange juice.

"Cream," Silence fell on the room. "She's dead… the vampire got her…" she sank into a chair and collapsed her head on the table. Sonic went over to comfort her. Tails rushed upstairs.

"I can't believe she's gone," Amy sobbed. Sonic had his arm around her shoulder. He wanted to say something, but the words wouldn't come. She looked up at him with teary eyes. Then he noticed something.

"Amy…"

"Huh?" She sniffed.

"You've got… blood… on your face… just there…" He pawed at his own mouth to display where it was.

"Do I?" She pawed at her mouth. She looked at her fingers. Sure enough, there was some glistening, wet blood on them. "Oh… that must have been from when I turned Cream over,"

"But on your mouth?"

"I don't know, it just happened…"

He wrapped his arms around her. Maybe it was out of fear, maybe it was out of affection, he didn't know, but he was compelled to do it.

Knuckles was wandering around the kitchen late that night. He opened the fridge and inspected the contents. _Damn military supplies… where's the variety?_ He grabbed a can of beer, one of the last few. He turned round and sat down at the table. Tails was half asleep in another chair. He looked into the next room – Amy was watching TV late again. _She can't be doing herself any favours_. He finished his can quickly and headed upstairs. About halfway up, he heard the TV turn off. He paused. Suspicious. He continued warily. He turned on the light in the bathroom. He fumbled at the zip on his trousers. _Maybe I shouldn't have had that last drink…_

He fiddled at them for a few minutes, before he finally got it down. He sighed with relief. The he felt something unwelcome behind him.

"I see you're using your last few breaths wisely…" A voice whispered into his ear.

"Oh shi…" He ducked before he was bitten. He ran over to the door and slammed into it. He pulled at the handle… it came off. He froze with the sheer frustration. He was so consumed with it that he didn't notice the two fangs sinking into his shoulder. He just stood there… until he was lifted and thrown into the bath. He felt the cold water filling up around his head as the vampire turned the tap on to cover the fingerprints. He faded out before the water rose over his head.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Sonic had troubled sleep that night. Around 6 AM, he rose because he felt kind of sick. He staggered to the bathroom in the half-light of the dawn, and put his hand on the door handle. It was cold and wet. He turned it uneasily. _Oh, great_, He thought. _Another one bites the crust_. He pushed the door open warily. The bathtub was overflowing with water, and bobbing on the top of the water was the slightly bloated remains of Knuckles. The water was tinted red from the blood. Sonic sighed angrily. He slumped against the door.

After a few minutes, he turned off the tap. He winced as he reached in to pull the plug to drain the water. As it drained away, the full extent of the damage was revealed. Knuckles' shoulder was all but gone, his arm hanging on by a thread. The water had washed away a lot of the flesh, there was basically just bone left. His face had swollen slightly from soaking in water all night.

Sonic entered the kitchen wearily. He noticed Tails sleeping on one of the chairs.

"Hey, buddy, you okay?"

"What?" He shook himself off and realised he was in the kitchen. "I must have fallen asleep on a break… What happened?"

"Knuckles slipped in the tub,"

"Really?"

"Tails, what makes you think there's going to be a death in this house that doesn't relate to vampires?" Sonic replied sarcastically.

"There goes the team…" Tails sank back into his chair. Sonic went over to get a bin-bag. Then he noticed something else.

"Tails,"

"What?"

"There's some blood on one of your tails…"

"Huh?" Tails grabbed them and pulled them round for a closer look. Sure enough, the end of one appeared to have been dabbed with blood. "So there is… that must be from when I took a blood sample from Silver's body to try and find out more about the virus,"

"Right…"

"What are you doing with that bin-bag?"

"Um… we don't have any more body bags…"

Shadow was the last to emerge. He entered the kitchen and took note of everybody there.

"Is that everybody?" He asked curiously.

"I think so," Tails looked up from his notes.

"One… two… five. How many were there on Saturday?"

"Nine."

"Someone's having a feast…" He responded nonchalantly. Amy was horrified.

"How can you be so blasé about all this? Four people are dead!"

"Yeesh, chill, Amy…"

Later that evening, Shadow had decided to sleep downstairs. Most of the murders seemed to have happened upstairs, so he was trying to stay out of their way. He had a thin blanket on the sofa. He had kicked Amy out early tonight, she seemed to be watching a lot of late night TV. He had just curled over to try and sleep when he heard a thump. He thought it was nothing, probably just somebody getting out of bed to go to the toilet, but then it happened again. He jumped out of the bed and headed upstairs. He vaulted over the banister to see a pair of feet being dragged round into Rouge's room. He bounded in after them to see Rouge's body on the floor next to her bed. It was dripping blood all over the carpet. Shadow scooped her up and put her on the bed. A tear was beginning to form in his eye… then he shook it off and turned to try and find the vampire. He flicked the light on… the room was deserted. The window was wide open. He rushed to the window and looked out. He saw nobody there, but out of anger he picked up the side table and threw it out of the window into the back garden after the killer. He heard it impact with something, and then a faint hissing sound. He leapt out the window himself to try and find them. He landed on his feet on the garden table. It cracked from the impact. He scanned the garden. _The dumb idiots at the police forgot to seal the back door._ Then he noticed the armed guards, if sleeping, in a makeshift tower just outside the garden. He saw that the table had hit the hose and there was water spilling everywhere. He also saw Amy, dripping wet, and not looking impressed.

"Amy, what are you doing out here?"

"Well I would be inside watching TV, if you hadn't kicked me out. I went outside because I was bored." She pushed the door to reveal the obvious fact that it was open. Shadow was not impressed either. "And why the hell did you throw the table out the window?"

"I was trying to hit the haemophage…"

"What is this, 'Shadow the vampire slayer'?" She taunted. He glared at her. "You did a nice job of attacking the hose, and now I'm soaked. Thanks a bunch," At that, she stormed inside. "Mind you…" she waited a moment. "Someone might be a bit suspicious when you've got blood on your hands," she looked at his left hand, which was smeared with blood.

"Damn… that was from when I lifted Rouge onto the bed after the vampire ran away…"

"Yes, I'm sure that'll hold up." At this, she slammed the door and went to bed.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

The next morning Shadow moped around the kitchen, earlier than he normally would. Tails had already gone to work; he was nowhere to be seen. Other than that it was just him, Sonic and Amy. They went about the business of getting their breakfast silently, occasionally throwing cold looks at each other. Each one suspected both the others. Sonic wasn't even paying enough attention to pour his milk into the bowl without spilling it all over the table. But even that wasn't enough to break the tension. He went on as if he hadn't noticed. Even when the cold milk dripped on his leg, he didn't even flinch. Such was the tension of the moment.

Later that afternoon, they had agreed to do some brainstorming to try and get a little closer to finding out who the vampire, or "Haemophage", as the authorities insisted they be called. Sonic had sprawled out on the sofa, Amy sat on the floor leaning against the sofa, Shadow stood by the TV, and Tails paced up and down.

"I think it's Amy," Shadow just lashed out first thing.

"Evidence?" Tails replied nonchalantly. "We can't just be accusing people without a reasonable basis."

"Well, last night, when I found Rouge, the vampire must have jumped out the window, and when I followed them, Amy was outside."

"Amy, what's your side of this?" Tails turned towards Amy.

"I said it before, I was out in the garden because I was bored. Shadow kicked me out off the sofa so I couldn't watch TV."

"But if he went upstairs to investigate the thumps he heard, wouldn't you have gone inside then?"

"If I was outside I wouldn't have known, you can't see the room from the back garden."

"True,"

"She could still be lying," Shadow was still persistent. "When I threw the table out the window, it hit the hose and she got soaked, there could have been blood on her and it could have been washed away."

"Well that's your fault, isn't it?"

"And if you remember rightly, I saw blood on your hand when you were talking to me the last night,"

"That was different, the blood was from putting Rouge on the bed, you left her on the ground…"

"Please, calm down, we don't know who it is yet." Tails broke it up before it got messy.

"Oh you're one to talk, you had the blood on your tail the other day, where did that come from?" Shadow continued.

"Hey!" Sonic shouted. "Easy," Shadow hushed up grudgingly.

"What other evidence do we have…"

"Cream was killed in Amy's room."

"So? That doesn't mean anything!" Amy was genuinely offended. "And besides, Cream was, like, my best friend in the whole world, she was like a daughter to me!"

"I suppose that's… reasonable…"

"Bullshit," Shadow was still unconvinced. "Every night you've been downstairs watching TV, and as soon as the last guy heads upstairs, you grab him and have a feed! Come on, admit it!"

"That only happened with Silver and Knuckles! Blaze, Cream and Rouge all died upstairs! For all we know it could be you, you emo!"

"That's it, you just bought yourself a WORLD of pain…" Shadow lunged at Amy. Sonic and Tails had to hold him back, and even then it wasn't quite adequate.

"She has a point you know," Sonic said as Shadow struggled. "You could have been waiting upstairs for people to prey on. Only Silver was killed downstairs. And you've been getting up late recently, could that be because " Shadow stopped struggling. "Come to think of it, it could have been Tails aswell, Tails was downstairs every night in the garage,"

"But if you'll remember, when Knuckles was killed, I was asleep at the kitchen table."

"Unless… there's more than one…"

"That's always a possibility…"

Tails was working overtime that night. He was so close to a breakthrough, he could almost taste it. He examined the contents of the test tube… _There's just one thing missing, but what is it…_ He reached over to the rack of other chemicals. He thumbed the lids pensively. After a few minutes, he picked one and poured the contents into to the test tube. He took a sample of it and dropped it into a flask with some blood in it. The label read "Vampire Blood… ?" It was slightly darker than the other blood samples, and had a few bizarre looking black beads in it. Where the drop touched the blood, it brightened up and the black beads disappeared. His face lit up. He corked the test tube and put it in the rack. He smiled at his work, and began writing a label. He had barely picked up the pen when he felt a sharp piercing pain at the base of his neck.

"No… not now… not today…" Summoning all his strength, he picked up an empty test tube rack and swung it behind him. He felt it hit something and the tight grip on his neck released. He heard the scurrying of feet as the attacker fled. He felt his neck… there was a lot of blood. A jugular bite – he was definitely going to die from this. With his last few minutes, he stuck the label to the test tube and began writing a note…


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

A/N: This is your language warning for today. Some of the language here gets coarser than a badger's backside.

The three remaining hedgehogs were still barely speaking to each other as they got their breakfast. Everybody had had a rough night, they were all roughed up. Nobody got much sleep. The tension in the air was so thick you could slice it with a knife. Sonic cast his glare equally between Amy and Shadow. Shadow's was purely trained on Sonic. Amy tried not to look at them. Eventually Sonic said something.

"Hey guys, has anyone seen Tails?"

"No… maybe you got to him last night." Shadow was becoming increasingly hysterical and paranoid.

"I'd better go check on him…" Sonic got up and left the table leaving his cereal half eaten.

He pushed the garage door open gingerly. Sure enough, there was the smell of chemicals that has been there since Tails turned it into a laboratory. But what was different was the usual occupant of the seat was on the floor dripping blood from his neck. His skin had paled significantly under his fur, and his mouth was hanging open. In his hand, there was a note scrawled with the pen that lay a few feet away. There were a couple of drops of blood on it. He picked the note from his dead friend's hand and read it.

"To whom it may concern…" _I suppose he couldn't start a letter without that…_

"If you are reading this then it means I am already dead. The vampire got to me, but did not give me a fatal bite, although death got to me before first aid." _Yadda yadda yadda…_ "I hit the vampire on the head with a test tube rack, so they should have a bump on their head." _Nobody has a bump… that I know of…_ "I know it's too late for me, but I have found a cure for the virus. Unfortunately, it has one adverse effect. It has one ingredient – a synthetic enzyme called haemoglobase – that if injected into someone who does not have the virus, will kill them by dismantling their blood cells. Thus, do NOT use it until you definitely know who the haemophage is. I repeat, if you use this on a normal person, it WILL kill them…" Sonic gulped. _This is going to make things complicated… well, more complicated._ "The cure is on the desk, the translucent red solution labelled 'Cure'. And if Sonic is reading this, I ran a few tests on the blood sample you gave me a few weeks ago, and the results are on the table behind the racks… my strength is fading so I must cut this short… goodbye, old friends…" The writing had become increasingly sloppy towards the end of the letter. The last few words were barely legible, and the bottom of the 's' on 'friends' continued off the page.

Sonic looked at the desk. Sure enough, there was only two test tube racks there (the third was on the floor), and the translucent red solution was clearly visible. He picked up the corked tube and searched for a label. The label was lopsided and the writing was messier than Tails' usual handwriting, but it definitely said 'Cure'. He poured the contents into a plastic vial, and began looking for the test results. There was a long sheet of paper, and for the majority of it, he hadn't the foggiest what it meant. Although helpfully, Tails had left a summary at the bottom. It was written in a different colour to the other note, so it must have been written earlier. He read the summary and smiled knowingly. He had suspected so. He put the results down and turned and left the garage.

On his way back he heard some commotion. Then there was the distinct sound of Amy screaming. He rushed into the kitchen. Shadow had Amy pinned against the fridge with his hands on her neck. He was shouting at her, and she was on the verge of tears.

"COME ON, ADMIT IT! YOU'RE THE VAMPIRE! YOU ARE! I KNOW YOU ARE!"

"SHADOW WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?" Sonic punched Shadow in the face as hard as he could.

"Agh… aw, man, what the fuck?"

"What the fuck did you think you were doing?"

"She is the vampire, I know she is!" He pointed at Amy with a shaky finger. Amy was a wreck at this stage.

"Even if she is, that's no way to go about finding out! Fuck's sake, man, you're hysterical!"

"Isn't that usually a symptom of guilt?" Amy added. Sonic stormed off. Amy followed him simply because she didn't want to be around Shadow.

That night, Shadow was sitting on the dining room table, with the clothe all scrunched up. He had brought down his bedsheets and was quivering in them holding a torch. He muttered to himself.

"Gotta stay awake… Amy will eat me… can't sleep…" He kept pointing the torch this way and that every few seconds. Sonic stood at the doorway. Shadow nearly fell off the table with the shock.

"You look a little tense, there." He said nonchalantly.

"Get away from me!" He screamed.

"Okay, if that's what you want…" he left the room and turned the TV back on.

He had been watching TV for a few moments when he remembered something. _Amy's usually watching TV here… where is she?_ He leapt off the sofa and rushed back into the kitchen. The torch that Shadow was holding had rolled away on the floor. It was smeared with blood. He picked it up nervously. He switched it on and pointed it in front of him. He closed his eyes as he did this. He heard some munching sounds, but they stopped after a second. He gathered the courage to open his eyes. There in front of him, on the table, he saw Shadow… he was lying on his back on the table, his head leant over the edge. His neck had been savagely eaten at, and strings of flesh hung off him. He lifted the torch up slowly to see Amy looking right at him, almost innocently, like a rabbit caught in the headlights. Two large fangs protruded from her mouth, and her whole muzzle was soaked with blood. She was on all fours on top of Shadow. Sonic dropped the torch. He didn't know whether to stay or turn and run.

Eventually Amy said something.

"Sonic… I am so sorry…"

"Don't… don't…"

"I didn't mean to do any of this…"

"What?" He took a step back as she jumped off the table and landed on her feet with ease.

"I don't know how it happened… it's like, the first night, I woke up, and I had an urge to do something, and then it's like my body just guided itself… and the feeling, when you bite someone, and drink their blood… it's… it's indescribable, it's like… I don't know what sex feels like but I'm pretty sure it feels better than that," Sonic looked horrified. "Come on, I really didn't want to do any of this… can you imagine what it felt like after I killed Cream? There's the fact the she died and then there's the guilt on top of that!"

"So… how did you cover your tracks?"

"Well… the bathroom was usually the first stop. Wash all the blood off. But when that wasn't possible… the other day when Rouge was killed. I jumped out the window and it was lucky that Shadow hit the hose with the table, it washed everything off. And half the time… I didn't remember a thing afterwards…" she broke down and started crying. She fell into Sonic's arms. "…and what really bugs me is, if I don't do something drastic… like, suicide… I'm going to have to kill you too…" She sobbed. Sonic smiled.

"That's where you're wrong."

"Huh?"

"Before Tails bit the dust, he finished the cure."

"Really?" Amy dried her tears. The fangs had disappeared now. "Then why didn't you tell us this morning?"

"I still couldn't be sure which one of you was the vampire."

"But how did you know it wasn't you and you didn't remember?"

"Tails ran a test on some blood I gave him a few weeks ago, and apparently there are some things in my blood or something that means I'm immune to the virus. He left the results next to the cure."

"So what are you waiting for? Give it to me!"

"You're sure? You did say that feeding on someone felt better than sex,"

"It's not worth the guilt afterwards,"

"Okay…" Sonic reached into the sofa and pulled out the vial of translucent red liquid. He went to Tails' lab to fetch a syringe. He entered the room and remembered something. He forgot to move Tails' body. He stepped over it to pick out a syringe. Then he heard something.

"Looking for something?" He heard a seductive voice say behind him. Amy was leaning against the doorframe, smiling and holding the box of syringes.

"Amy! What are you doing?" She grinned widely. The fangs had returned.

"Come get 'em," She ran off with them. He followed her. _Goddamit, the virus must be fighting back!_ He followed her into her bedroom. She lay on her bed; she had thrown her jeans away and was only wearing her t-shirt and panties. The box of syringes was scattered on the far side of the room. He dived for it and caught it. Amy lunged at him, but he deflected her with his arm. He struggled to keep her at bay with his feet as he prepared the syringes. Amy laughed as she played with his feet. Eventually she pinned his feet to the ground. She crawled up to his face, and paused.

"Oh, this is gonna be fun…" she whispered as she leant closer and opened her mouth wider.

"Really?" Sonic jabbed the syringe into her arm. She stopped dead. He pumped the red liquid into her. She leant back a little as it took effect. After a few minutes of blank staring, she collapsed into Sonic's arms, crying.

"It's okay now, Amy… it's all over…"


End file.
